Wire musical instrument strings, as for electric bass guitars, guitars, etc., normally have one end terminated by a so-called ball end. Such a ball end normally is hollow, has a coaxial through-hole and has a substantially cylindrical outer peripheral surface with an annular groove intermediate its ends which snugly receives a loop of the wire closed by twisting of the wire immediately adjacent such loop and ball end. Such ball end thus forms an enlargement at the end of the wire string by which the latter can be fixed to a member on the body of the musical instrument and from which the wire extends to connect at its unballed end to a tuning key or the like at the head of the instrument.
In a prior machine for securing one end of a wire musical instrument string to a ball end with a twist, the wire is fed behind the ball end tangential to the groove therein, the ball end is moved rearwardly from the wire path to form a U-shape around the ball end, the trailing end of the wire is severed to form the short leg of the U-shape, the legs are clamped and the ball end is rotated to form such twist (hereinafter referred to as a single twist), whereafter the interconnected ball end and wire are ejected from the machine.
While such prior machine has for the most part been satisfactory in terms of formation of such a single twist, the present invention is the result of a continuing effort to achieve improved performance and reliability of operation of producing a ball-ended musical instrument string of desired length wherein the finished product may be provided without the use of expensive and cumbersome equipment.
Currently many types of music strings require a “ball end” to attach and secure the non-stretching part of the musical string to the musical instruments tail piece or bridge.
The ball ending process currently in use requires the wire to be looped around the slotted brass “ball-end” and then twisted around itself a number of times in order to tie the string wire around the brass ball end. This process requires an expensive ball ender machine to do this.
There is a limit to the diameter of wire that can be used to make a string using this ball ending process; usually a 0.008 is the smallest size for plain steel strings. When the string breaks, the ball end is discarded because it cannot be attached to another wire without the expensive ballending machine.
The other option currently used is a special bridge that must be attached to the instrument. A company called Floyed Rose has created a clamping bridge that allows a string wire to be clamped at the securing end of the string. This special bridge requires the removal of the original bridge. Once attached to the instrument, only plain wire may be used without a ball end attached.